Earlier this week, a Politico story revealed that Democrats were circulating a memo explaining how vulnerable candidates for 2014 can neutralize Obamacare as an issue in the midterms. The memorandum was circulated to Democratic House candidates. Democrats in the House have already had to deal with Obamacare in two election cycles after most of them voted for the bill (which narrowly passed, 219-212) in 2010.

In the 2010 midterms, House Democrats suffered a crushing blow. Republicans gained solid control of the House, picking up 63 seats. The unpopularity of Obamacare, which helped trigger the rise of the Tea Party in 2010, was a critical factor in the rout of House Democrats. Voters threw out Democrats who supported the bill, as well as those who were allowed to vote “no” by Nancy Pelosi once a majority was secured. Republicans also picked up seven Senate seats in 2010.

Democratic senators up for re-election in 2014 are facing voters for the first time since their votes for the Obamacare legislation in 2009 and 2010. Several who were swept to victory in 2008 with the decisive win by Barack Obama would face challenging races this year even without the Obamacare overhang: seven states where Democrats have to defend a Senate seat in 2014 — Alaska, West Virginia, South Dakota, North Carolina, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Montana — were carried by Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney in 2012.

Generally, midterm elections provide a slightly better mix of Republican-leaning voters than is seen in presidential election years (a higher percentage of white and older voters). Various polls show Republican candidates even or ahead in six of the seven states, trailing only in Alaska by a narrow margin. West Virginia and South Dakota are open seats. Montana is held by an appointed senator.

In the other four states, Republicans will charge that the incumbent Democratic senator cast the deciding vote for Obamacare, which achieved exactly the 60 votes needed to break the GOP filibuster on the legislation. Each senator can be individually blamed for the legislation passing.

In several other states that Obama carried in 2012 — Michigan and Iowa among them — Republicans are well positioned to pick up open Senate seats or to mount a serious challenge to defeat first-term Democrats (New Hampshire, Colorado, Virginia and Minnesota have first-term Democrats). If 2014 proves to be a wave election, the number of Democratic Senate seats at risk could grow to ten or more.

The attempt to insulate Democrats who voted for Obamacare legislation is fraught with risk for the party. President Obama and his administration have done everything in their power to protect Democrats in the midterms by unilaterally pushing back start dates for various sections of the legislation — such as the employer mandate — until 2015. They also pushed back the open enrollment period for individuals in 2014, moving the start of the second annual enrollment period a few weeks past Election Day. This was to avoid anger about higher premium prices offered on the exchanges in the second year, assuming the mix of enrolled people in the first year proved to be unusually expensive to cover for insurance plans (too few young and healthy, too many older, sicker enrollees).

The Obama team had assumed that once the enrollment numbers are in for the first year, complaints about the program would soon subside. While congressmen such as Illinois Senator Dick Durbin continue to tout a number of 10 million enrollees to date, that number appears to be vastly overstated. After eliminating exchange enrollees who were substituting exchange polices for cancelled individual policies, and once Medicaid enrollment numbers are analyzed to separate out only those associated with the Medicaid expansion due to the new law, the net enrollment may only be a third or a fourth of the “advertised” numbers. Also, some of those with cancelled policies will go without insurance this year.

The Obama campaign team is relying on diversions to combat the unpopularity of the new law. Unemployment insurance, the minimum wage, income and wealth inequality, and the “war on women” are designed to turn the page, to create a playing field where Democrats can sell themselves as caring and Republicans as heartless. However, Democrats had complete control of the White House and both houses of Congress when they passed Obamacare and the near $900 billion stimulus in early 2009, and recent polls show that economic insecurity and jobs are still very important issues for voters. It will be difficult for Democrats to blame Republicans for creating the economic conditions of the last five-plus years.

I’m a bit confused as in the past when I refer to ACA as Marxist the Progressive tells me I have no idea what Marxism even is and how Obamacare isn’t Marxist at all. Of course this is the same Progressive that tells me that illegal isn’t really illegal when applied to a migrant crossing our border without permission. So then again I guess I’ll consider the source.

Marxist tenets basically believe that we should all throw in our resources for the collective one. And the means of production are to be controlled by the government which always does a fine job when having total control in peoples’ everyday lives. So let’s look at ACA shall we? I just saw a Hulu.com ad about it so now I am fully informed.

The ad shows a son and a mother. The son says he cannot afford health insurance. The mother insists that now he can. At reduced rates. The son appears to be living with his mother or obviously isn’t that successful since he needs her guidance on the matter in his twenties. She then tells him not only can he afford it but if he can’t then he can get help paying for it. This must be ACA because the first “success” story I heard when ACA was implemented was a guy who had majored in videography in college, made 20K a year in Hollywood and was getting his health insurance for seventy dollars a month. That’s amazing, I thought. Of course people who didn’t major in something that was largely useless for a viable income had to pay much much more and were not subsidized by the government. So I guess the mother had heard of this story and was gleefully relaying it to her son that he too could pay less while others paid more. And better yet with expanded Medicaid many will not pay at all. And when subsidized by the government that means subsidized by the producers’ taxes so it equates to one man paying for another according to his need. According to need. Where have I heard that before? Let me see---yep there it is, written by Karl Marx. You see, we all work for a common good. I should pay more so someone else pays less or not at all. Redistribution of my income to those who are less successful. And at the same time taking over the means of production. That would be us providers as I was one for thirteen years.

Right. I have no idea what Marxism is at all. Silly me. I have it all wrong. Taking one’s income and giving it to another in the form of reduced rates for insurance is capitalistic. Forgive me my error.

If we continue this we will fall. Don’t just believe my fictional prophecies. The problem with the Progressive worldview is it is discounted by a really inconvenient entity. That would be history. But I’m sure this time Mr. Progressive, entitlement programs will reduce poverty. Because history shows it does. Wait a minute, I stand corrected. History doesn’t show that at all. History shows that you are completely wrong. Every time. And that it would be a much safer bet to place that chip on my fiction based on actual history, repeated history mind you, than to indulge in academic theory from the university campus for a utopian society that has never existed in the world of mankind to this day.

Funny how all us successful capitalists get it while the unsuccessful continue to stick their hand out for. . . well, the handout. And that is the difference between the Capitalist and the Marxist.

Class dismissed Mr. Progressive

Charles Hurst. Author of THE SECOND FALL. An offbeat story of Armageddon. And creator of THE RUNNINGWOLF EZINE blog.

Tell me, how many other presidents in the last 100 years have unilaterally changed major laws affecting a huge portion of our economy without Congress' permission?

I haven't looked up how many executive orders president's have issued, because I don't care about the quantity, just the quality. An executive order dedicating a post office to some party official that died isn't an issue. An executive order that discourages the rule of law is an issue.

>> the Obama team chose to go forward with their legislative mess rather than hand the Tea Party a political victory. Delaying the implementation for a year might have enabled Obama’s team to come up with more comprehensive changes and to avoid the misery of six million cancelled policies.

The Democrats and Obama aren't stupid enough to think that "more comprehensive changes" would fix the problem. They know it won't, and you should too. *Less* comprehensive changes are the only thing that will fix ObamaCare. If less comprehensive changes to a comprehensive law sound like it's undoing, it's because it is. That is why they didn't delay it. It wasn't about handing the Tea Party a political victory, it was that they didn't want to undermine their own legislation.

DWS told us that dems are going to run on obamacare and their support for it, why are we asking them to change the plan that she tells them is a winner. Should be fun, as I see chia pets beating incumbents that voted for obamacare.

I’m a bit confused as in the past when I refer to ACA as Marxist the Progressive tells me I have no idea what Marxism even is and how Obamacare isn’t Marxist at all. Of course this is the same Progressive that tells me that illegal isn’t really illegal when applied to a migrant crossing our border without permission. So then again I guess I’ll consider the source.

Marxist tenets basically believe that we should all throw in our resources for the collective one. And the means of production are to be controlled by the government which always does a fine job when having total control in peoples’ everyday lives. So let’s look at ACA shall we? I just saw a Hulu.com ad about it so now I am fully informed.

The ad shows a son and a mother. The son says he cannot afford health insurance. The mother insists that now he can. At reduced rates. The son appears to be living with his mother or obviously isn’t that successful since he needs her guidance on the matter in his twenties. She then tells him not only can he afford it but if he can’t then he can get help paying for it. This must be ACA because the first “success” story I heard when ACA was implemented was a guy who had majored in videography in college, made 20K a year in Hollywood and was getting his health insurance for seventy dollars a month. That’s amazing, I thought. Of course people who didn’t major in something that was largely useless for a viable income had to pay much much more and were not subsidized by the government. So I guess the mother had heard of this story and was gleefully relaying it to her son that he too could pay less while others paid more. And better yet with expanded Medicaid many will not pay at all. And when subsidized by the government that means subsidized by the producers’ taxes so it equates to one man paying for another according to his need. According to need. Where have I heard that before? Let me see---yep there it is, written by Karl Marx. You see, we all work for a common good. I should pay more so someone else pays less or not at all. Redistribution of my income to those who are less successful. And at the same time taking over the means of production. That would be us providers as I was one for thirteen years.

Right. I have no idea what Marxism is at all. Silly me. I have it all wrong. Taking one’s income and giving it to another in the form of reduced rates for insurance is capitalistic. Forgive me my error.

If we continue this we will fall. Don’t just believe my fictional prophecies. The problem with the Progressive worldview is it is discounted by a really inconvenient entity. That would be history. But I’m sure this time Mr. Progressive, entitlement programs will reduce poverty. Because history shows it does. Wait a minute, I stand corrected. History doesn’t show that at all. History shows that you are completely wrong. Every time. And that it would be a much safer bet to place that chip on my fiction based on actual history, repeated history mind you, than to indulge in academic theory from the university campus for a utopian society that has never existed in the world of mankind to this day.

Funny how all us successful capitalists get it while the unsuccessful continue to stick their hand out for. . . well, the handout. And that is the difference between the Capitalist and the Marxist.

Class dismissed Mr. Progressive

Charles Hurst. Author of THE SECOND FALL. An offbeat story of Armageddon. And creator of THE RUNNINGWOLF EZINE blog.

I'm tired of parsing, calculating and analyzing the electorates. That's what ruling class / losing class rinos have been doing for 50 years. I'm ready for somebody who will just simply describe the proven conservative approaches that built the greatest country in human history.

I fully expect Obama to issue an executive order sometime in October, maybe September if Democrats are taking a heavy beating, that the MSM will say "fixes" Obamacare.

Then the MSM will all heavily praise the EO, which will conviently not take effect until after the election, for the next month and up to the election date.

If Republicans want to overcome this one-two punch between Obama and the MSM, they need to get their act together right now. They have stated they will not deal with immigration until after the election. They slapped fiscal conservatives by kowtowing to Democrats on the debt ceiling resolution. Now they need to do something to appease the Tea Party types that the just abused, but I doubt it will happen since they will be dealing with primaries for most of the year.

Sure they can. The AP, Wash Post, USA Today can all run stories full of spin. Perhaps the lady reading the papers can have a good laugh or a cry a day after her treatment has been denied or delayed or her doctor can no longer see her as a patient.